WASHINGTON — A Senate panel on Wednesday abruptly postponed a vote on Chuck Hagel's nomination to be defense secretary amid Republican demands for more information from President Barack Obama's nominee about his finances.

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, had hoped to vote on the nomination on Thursday during a separate hearing on Libya, but Levin issued a statement late Wednesday saying no vote would occur this week.

"The committee's review of the nomination is not yet complete. I intend to schedule a vote on the nomination as soon as possible," Levin said.

Hours earlier, committee Republicans said they were dissatisfied with information Hagel had provided the panel after his confirmation hearing last week and no vote should occur.

6. gross n/t

8. I agree about Levin

He's one of a few Ds that are on my shit list right now (not that it matters to them). I had asked yesterday about whether the vote would be along party lines in the committee and never really got an answer as to what is expected. I guess since it is 14-12, then it would just take Levin to swing to tie the committee. I hope Obama is on the phone to him reminding him about the auto bailout and the fact that jobs were saved in his state as a result of it.

7. According to Politico, the R's are trying to delay his votes until after the next

recess, late February--time to try to find more dirt on him and leave him "hanging in the breeze", to quote a Repub. He is being asked to provide things he cannot provide, and that other nominees have NOT been asked to provide, such as various organizations' source of funding and financial info that few people would even have access to. Why Carl Levin is going along with this is anyone's guess.

22. Among the speculations I read

is that Levin is try8ing to play a long for a short while to prevent more nastiness once Hagel is confirmed in committee and is ready for a floor vote. I don't think that Levin is trying to sink the nomination.

11. Okay, I understand your position, but could you or someone please explain to me why

Hagel is the person for the job? I think he is a bad choice and just being picked by the president does not automatically make him good. (BTW, try having cruz and cornyn for your senators and see if your Democrat doesn't look a little better.)

16. Please see response to #12. Thanks.

12. Curious as to what you've seen and read. He used to be my Senator, so

I paid some attention to him over the years. He is friends with Obama, Biden, and Kerry. He is very well-regarded in foreign policy and defense circles. He was an intelligence advisor to Obama, he's a foreign policy professor, was head of an investment banking firm, cofounded one of the first cell phone companies, was head of the USO and pretty high up in the VA. The Repubs/neocons aren't afraid he'll be a bad SecDef, they're afraid he'll be a very effective one for Obama's agenda. That's why Obama nominated him, and that's why the GOP is now throwing up unprecedented roadblocks to stop him.

15. First, thank you for your detailed response. Here are some of my concerns:

"Lobbyists who once worked for the Nebraska lawmaker represent a host of companies that do business with the Department of Defense. Their clients include some of the biggest names in the defense industry--manufacturers of everything from ships to missiles, from periscopes to submarines.

They include Chad Wolf of Wexler Walker, whose firm bio calls him a "key advisor to homeland security and defense contractors." Wolf, who worked as an aide to Hagel for more than two years before joining the Transportation Security Administration in 2002, lobbies for American Science & Engineering, which provides the military with vehicle and cargo screening devices, military communications equipment maker Harris Corporation, and United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of defense industry titans Lockeed Martin and Boeing, which provides missiles to the military.

Raytheon, the aerospace contractor which ranks third among Defense contractors, with $13.4 billion awarded in 2012, employs Mark Esper as its top lobbyist. Among other Capitol Hill jobs, the former Army colonel served Hagel as legislative director and senior policy adviser. The company has spent more than $5 million lobbying in the first three quarters of 2012, with Defense and federal appropriations the issues they've mentioned most frequently on their dislcosures.

GOP political operative Robert Collins, Hagel's press secretary in 2002 before becoming the chief of staff and right hand man to Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va., until 2010 served as president of the American Action Network, a conservative dark money group, until 2011, and is currently on the board of Crossroads GPS, the Karl Rove-affiliated nonprofit that spent more than $70 million in the election. Collins is also a partner at Purple Strategies and a registered lobbyist for its Purple Advocacy subsidiary. Among his clients is Huntington Ingalls Industries, the biggest supplier of ships for the U.S. Navy. The company, spun off from Northrop Grumman in 2011, has won more than $5.6 billion in Defense Department contracts since, according to data in USASpending.gov.

These companies could have insider connections if Obama nominates Hagel and he is confirmed by the Senate."

Raytheon is one of my biggest concerns. I really do not trust this man.

17. It's pretty hard to find people in Washington who don't have ties to defense contractors--

but the defense industry is already on record as being concerned about Hagel, that he will cut too much from the DoD budget--this is one of the reasons he's being strongly opposed, in fact. Of all the concerns about him, I don't think I've ever heard anyone suggest he might be too friendly with, or too influenced by the industry.

20. Why do you suppose that the Repubs are desperately trying to stop him, then?

Why would they publicly attack him on a level of viciousness not seen before by members of the same party? Why are no Democrats or Indies like Bernie Sanders opposing him? They're openly a little disgruntled about John Brennan, why not Hagel? Sometimes things and people are exactly as they appear.

18. Nice 'cut and paste' from the Sunlight Foundation...indeed.

25. The only thing that really gave me pause about Hagel, apart from his homophic remarks,

was the fact the he owned ES&S, which operated voting machines. ES&S software could have very well factored into election rigging in 2004 at the very least.

Other than that, I think Hagel is a brilliant choice. Here's a Republican who seems committed to downsizing the military, as well as, pursuing the destruction of nukes. He, unlike some Democrats, has apologized for his vote for the invasion of Iraq, is correct when it comes to the failure of the so-called "surge," and is right that we took our eyes off the ball in Afghanistan. The fact that he is a Republican nullifies age-old arguments about Republicans being pro-war and pro-military spending with no questions asked. The fact that he is a Republican who is seeking to downgrade the military and stop unnecessary spending gives the president and Democrats cover. Had Hagel been a Democrat who is for all these things, he would have been pilloried in the press as being just another Democrat who is "soft" and who wants to destroy the military.

He also tells it like it is when it comes to AIPAC and other lobby organizations who put their interests over those of the American people. He tells it like it is when it comes to the neocons.

I think Chuck Hagel has redeemed himself from his past mistakes, and that's why I still think he's a brilliant choice for Defense Secretary. Could there have been other good choices besides him? Maybe, but that doesn't mean that he isn't a good choice. I think he is.